I’d like to talk a little bit about SEO guarantees and what I see as the problems inherent in them. First of all, for the most part these guarantees are utterly useless. An SEO company will give a customer a guarantee of say top ranking on 20 search terms. Then present the customer with a list of 200 or so keywords. These lists include great terms like Cheap Web Hosting, Quality Web Hosting, etc. But these are only keywords, these are not the 20 top ranking terms. The top ranking ones are more likely to be something like ‘affordable blog webhosting in Scottsdale Arizona’ or some such useless term which is obviously ranked number one because no one has ever searched such a useless term before. Paying for top ranking of useless terms is a total waste of time.

Secondly, guarantees are only worth the company behind them. If you get a guarantee from some schmo living in a trailer park somewhere running his goodwill laptop from power generated by his 12 kids pumping away on Gilligan’s Island bicycles it’s worth about as much as the paper wrapped around your McDonald’s cheeseburger. If this guy takes your money and gives you top ranking on bogus search terms, or even worse does nothing at all, or if he gets your site sanctioned, bringing a lawsuit against him is going to cost for more time and effort than it’s worth. So, investigate the company behind the claim before you sign anything.

Lastly, and this is the kicker, even though most guarantees are worthless they are still necessary. If an SEO company doesn’t have the confidence to guarantee you results they shouldn’t be in the SEO business in the first place. You have confidence that when you walk into McDonald’s you are guaranteed a cheeseburger for your money. Or if you go to the Ford Dealership and plonk down your hard earned money your are guaranteed that they will provide you the car you’ve paid for. If they didn’t, these companies wouldn’t be in business for too long. Therefore, in choosing an SEO company you’ve got to be willing to do your homework. Find out if the company has a good reputation, get a reasonable guarantee and ask a lot of questions.